


Dreams of a Witch

by TheDinosaurNerd



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Exposition, Family Feels, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Introspection, Most characters are just mentioned, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Post-Episode: s01e18 Agony of a Witch, at least, for now, slight mention of lumity but it's not the focus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:54:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26186740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDinosaurNerd/pseuds/TheDinosaurNerd
Summary: (Spoilers for Agony of a Witch and Young Blood, Old Souls)Eda, now little more than a memory, confronts her past, and tells a young witch a bedtime story.
Relationships: Eda Clawthorne & Luz Noceda
Comments: 4
Kudos: 133





	Dreams of a Witch

**Author's Note:**

> Some finale, huh?

Edalyn opened her eyes.

She was dreaming, again. It was the same, again; the same old room from her childhood, muffled by darkness and silence and the oppressive haze of memory. The same scene she had seen played out every time she…

Every time she ceased to exist.

Because she didn’t really exist as _Edalyn_ when she transformed, not really. Maybe if the transformation was incomplete, if the curse wasn’t at its full power, there might be a bit of her at the heart of that monster. But the Owl Beast was not Edalyn. All that remained of her now was trapped here, in this tiny room at the edges of her mind. And this time there was no way back. 

It didn’t hurt too much, at least. She had spent a long time thinking about the day the curse would take over, spent so many sleepless nights agonizing over the thought until eventually the fear faded, and she just became numb to the idea of her own death. And in a physical sense, she didn’t really _feel_ anything anymore, not the way she did as a living person. Everything felt sort of warm and fuzzy, like being half-asleep, wrapped up in too many blankets in her nest. She just… wasn’t real anymore. She was a memory.

The bedroom door creaked open, the blazing white light slicing through the heavy silence. Edalyn looked into the light, and finally the silhouette that stood there was clear to her. She heaved a sigh as she looked down at her sister.

“Did you know, Lily?” she asked. “Did you know how bad it was going to be?” Somehow, she doubted it. The next day, when Eda had met her sister’s eyes on the grudgby field, in the brief moment before the curse overtook her in broad daylight, Lily had seemed as terrified as Eda had been herself.

The apparition in the doorway was silent. She didn’t see Edalyn, only the girl asleep in the bed behind her. Edalyn tried to decipher the look on Lily’s face. Was it determination? Bitterness? Resentment? _Fear?_ She couldn’t quite tell. The look of someone who didn’t fully understand what she was about to do, perhaps. She was just a kid, after all. They were both just dumb kids.

“I don’t need to see this,” Edalyn said, to no one in particular. “I know how this ends now.” As if in response, the door closed, plunging the bedroom into darkness again. It was still her mind, she supposed. She still had control of this little corner of her psyche.

Usually, this was when the dream ended.

Instead, Edalyn was left there, in that dark and empty memory, and the weight of everything that had happened was truly sinking in. Something tightened in her chest. The silence was too deep, too heavy; it was all around her, closing in, and she was _drowning_ in it. She’d thought that she would be okay with this, that all those years of suffering would’ve hardened her heart to this, but she couldn’t ignore the treacherous feeling in the pit of her gut.

She was lonely.

Since when had loneliness become such a foreign feeling?

(Well. She knew _exactly_ when.)

Edalyn closed her eyes and tried not to think about it, as if ignoring the hole in her heart would somehow make it go away, but it was pointless. She was all alone, _again_ , and somehow it hurt even more than the first time. She choked back a sob and leaned her forehead against the bedroom door. 

Something stirred in the quiet of the room, and Edalyn remembered that she wasn’t _completely_ alone.

Turning slowly from the door, Edalyn sighed at the sight of the little girl fast asleep in her bed, her orange hair messily piled up on her pillow. She had to admit, she’d been pretty cute as a kid. She looked so… content. Happy, even. An innocent little kid with no idea how awful her life was about to get. 

She had been tired that day, if her memory served her right. Tryouts for the Emperor’s Coven were coming up, and she’d spent the day practicing with Lily. She had gone to bed early, not even bothering to change out of her school uniform. 

Gently, Edalyn sat down at the head of the bed and maneuvered the young girl’s head into her lap. For a few minutes, she just listened to her younger self’s quiet breathing. The quiet, rhythmic sound soothed her nerves, and the tension in her gut started to unravel, just a little bit.

“Whatcha dreamin’ about, you little gremlin?” she muttered fondly, brushing a lock of hair out of the girl’s face. “I hope it’s something good. I don’t remember what I was dreaming about this night. It was… a long time ago, for me.” Edalyn sighed and leaned her head against the wall behind her. So much had happened since that night that it was hard to put into words. It was a story she preferred to keep to herself, but… well, it was high time she told _somebody_ about it. She’d never have another chance, after all.

“Finding out I’d been cursed was rough. It’s one of the scariest things that can happen to a person. At first, Lily insisted on sticking by my side; she helped me figure out how to manage the curse, and she wanted me to try and finish school, but… I pushed her away. I didn’t want to hurt her, or anyone else, so I ran away.

“Being on my own sucked. That’s all I can really say about it. I tried to scrounge up enough garbage to sell at the market, or use some of my school knowledge to throw together potions, but making ends meet was near impossible when I needed to keep buying more elixir. Most of the time I ended up just stealing what I needed. And, let me tell you, the creatures you meet sleeping under a bridge are _not_ friendly. If I had five snails for every time something tried to steal my skin, well, I’d never have to work again.

“Surviving on my own wasn’t easy, but after a few years I got used to it. What’s more, I started learning things from the Isles. I started studying wild magic, not by reading books or doing homework, but by listening to what the world was telling me. I was becoming more and more powerful, and eventually I knew I was going to need a staff.

“Since I didn’t finish school, I’d need to make a staff myself, and I wanted it to be the best staff around. Finding the right tree for the job took a long time, and, well, trees that old and powerful are that way for a reason. Earning that enchanted branch took everything I had, but after studying the Isles for so long, I was able to earn the Isles’ respect. I knew right away what I wanted my palisman to be; if they were going to call me the Owl Girl, then I was going to own it, and that’s how Owlbert came into my life.

“Things were finally starting to turn around for me. Owlbert was the first real friend I’d had in a long time, and though he was small, he meant the world to me. I was getting better at running my stand, and once I figured out how to get to the human realm my business skyrocketed. I was racking up a higher bounty by the week, but that just made things more fun. Soon enough, I was starting to think about finding a place to call home. I scoured the Isles for the perfect place, and after months of searching, I found it. Me and Owlbert built the Owl House together, brick by brick, and to keep it safe… well, for both our sakes I’ll spare the details of how Hooty came into the picture.

“My life was finally starting to feel… stable, in a way it hadn’t been since I was your age. I was starting to think that was how things were going to be for the rest of my life, and then I found this tiny little demon rooting through the trash. There’s not much to how we became friends, really; he reminded me of myself a bit, and he was cute, so I invited him to come stay with me. That’s how I got King as a roommate. After that, my life was pretty uneventful. I had a routine: run the stand, buy my elixir, maybe commit some petty crime here and there. I was keeping the curse at bay, but it was slowly getting worse. I couldn’t run from the fact that my days were numbered, and my expiration date was coming sooner rather than later. Everything felt a little… pointless. Like I was just biding my time. Sure, I had my friends, but I wasn’t really _living_ for anything. Some days I didn’t even want to wake up in the morning, but at the same time, I needed to keep busy to keep my mind off things. It’s pretty sad, actually, now that I say it out loud, but my life was just… empty. And then…

“And then you showed up,” Eda finished, looking down at the girl sleeping in her lap. It wasn’t her younger self; the hair was too short, the skin darker, the ears round instead of pointy. “Luz, when you came into my life, it felt like I finally had something to live for. Even for the short time I knew you, watching you grow up somehow made everything worth it. Before we met, I was worried I would die without having done anything worthwhile. Now, I don’t regret anything. Not one minute of it.”

Luz nestled a little deeper into Eda’s arms. There was a slight smile on the girl’s face, and Eda could only imagine what she was dreaming about.

“Things are going to be… hard for a little while. It’s going to seem like you’re all alone, like you’ll never be able to find happiness again. But you’re going to be okay. I just know it. You have a home to go back to, and a mother who loves you. You have friends that will stand by you through anything, and don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you look at that Blight girl. You might be sad now, but in the end… I know you’ll be alright, kiddo.”

Eda closed her eyes, one hand still combing through Luz’s hair, and let herself sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to make this as canon-compliant as I could, but since I had to extrapolate a lot of Eda's past there's a good chance canon will undo some of this later down the line. But at the end of the day, I think the chronology of everything matters less than the feelings going into it.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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